


Since It Began

by The3rdTrumpeteer



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Canon Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17377361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The3rdTrumpeteer/pseuds/The3rdTrumpeteer
Summary: Since the apocalypse began, and the city fell, all they can do now is survive.---Zombie AU





	1. Chapter 1

Jack didn’t know how long he’d been running, only that the lodging house was still too far away, even though he could just see the top of its singed roof from where he was crouched a block away, trying desperately to keep his breathing even and soft, lest they hear him.

After a few more moments, Jack deemed it safe enough to venture out from behind the pile of discarded wooden crates he had used as an impromptu hiding place after...

Jack sprinted toward the lodging house, not daring to look back over his shoulder. The building was close now, a mess of boarded-up windows and messily hung curtains. There were no candles burning in the windows, no one lounging on the front steps or on the fire escape. 

The lodging house was still in pretty good shape considering everything that had happened; it was a miracle the place hadn’t burned down when half the district went up in flames. Adults were so stupid, with their panic and their plans and their ideas for ridding the city of the beings that had so quickly and unfairly invaded it. Now, after days of smoke and screams, it was almost too quiet. Jack had never trusted the quiet.

He practically flew up the stairs and hit the front door with a fist, knocking out a hurried pattern that they had all come up with mere hours ago before he and Finch left, knives in their boots and stolen police batons in their hands.

From behind the door came the commotion of someone removing something heavy, then it opened a little to reveal Race, who was holding another baton in a defensive manner. He lowered it when he saw Jack.

“You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Finch?” The question was unnecessary, and they both knew it.

“…just let me in. Please.”

Race nodded and opened the door a little wider, and Jack slipped in. There was no one else in the common area. The upper floors were safer, so only the lookouts used the first floor.

“I guess you didn’t find anything?” Race asked as they climbed the stairs. “I told you-”

“I know what you told me, Race,” Jack snapped. He sighed. “Sorry. It’s just that…I thought there might be something there. And now, Finch is…and for what?”

They had reached the bunk room by now, and Race pushed the door open. The boys scattered about the floor and beds looked stared at them with worried eyes. Specs had been sitting on a bunk with a sleeping Romeo in his lap, but now he gently extricated himself from the other and approached Race and Jack. He didn’t say anything, only pulled Jack into a silent hug, which Jack readily returned.

“He didn’t make it, did he?” Specs whispered, and there were so many people he could have been asking about and also only one. Jack just shook his head. He could feel tears, the first in a while, pooling in his eyes.

“No.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Davey, my arm hurts.”

“Shh, I know.” Davey hugged Les a little closer, careful of the blood that stained his brother’s sleeve. “But you have to stay quiet, or they’ll hear us. We’re almost there, okay?”

Les nodded, and Davey sighed before hefting the crowbar he had grabbed from under his parents’ bed the night he and Les managed to escape. Their father had never returned from work that very first evening, and when the news of the outbreak spread, the rest of the Jacobs family had feared the worst. They stayed in their small apartment for days, Esther trying her best to ration out the meager amount of food that had been in the cupboards. But it didn’t last long among four people, and Davey had finally convinced his mother to let him go outside and try to find something, anything for them to eat, and he went down the fire escape and found nothing and there was still so much chaos and when he came back-

Les had hidden inside one of the now-empty kitchen cupboards, and it had saved his life. When Davey came back through the window a hour, maybe two, later, the small apartment was in shambles, the front door had been wrenched open by persons unknown, and his family was nowhere to be found. And then his mother--except it wasn’t his mother, far too bloodied and snarling--had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tried to grab him, and Davey had barely managed to get away from her foaming mouth and snapping teeth. He stumbled away, diving for his parents’ bed, still unmade from that morning when Esther had still been alive and waking her three children, all of whom had insisted on sleeping near her, and groping desperately underneath, searching and searching and where the  _fuck_  was it and then his hand closed around a piece of metal and Davey smashed it into the creature’s (it wasn’t his mother anymore, he knew that) face. It went down with a feral scream, and Davey hit it once more and then scrambled back, too afraid to even stay near it. For the moment, it was out of commission, but it wouldn’t be long before it was back on its feet. He had to hurry.

“Les?” Davey called as loudly as he dared. “Sarah?”

At first there was no answer, but then Davey heard a quiet sound from the corner cupboard that sat, almost concealed, by the broken kitchen table. He pushed the furniture away and opened the door and there was Les, tears streaming down his face. He was clutching his arm close to his chest, and Davey could see blood, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Les didn’t move until Davey gently beckoned to him.

“Mama did it,” the younger Jacobs whispered when he saw Davey cast another worried glance at his arm. “There were big men, but they were screaming and all bloody, and they grabbed Mama, and then she was screaming, too, and they...they got her neck, and I thought she wasn’t breathin’ anymore but then she was again. And she grabbed me, but Sarah yelled at her...”

He trailed off, his reddened eyes glazed. Davey gently shook him.

“Les, where’s Sarah?” 

“The men dragged her away.” Les started breathing faster, close to hyperventilating. His lip quivered. “Davey, we gotta find her-”

“We will.” Davey pulled Les into as tight of an embrace as he could without jostling his brother’s arm. “We’ll find her. We just gotta get out of here first. Get somewhere safer.” He tried to tell himself he wasn’t lying to Les.

They left minutes later after Davey had hastily stuffed some supplies--a blanket, their last jug of water, and the sharp knife that his mother had used to chop vegetables for stew--into an old rucksack.

The streets were too dangerous, so they stuck mostly to rooftops and fire escapes. It had been three days, and Davey was worried Les wouldn’t make it much farther. He was young and small and his arm seemed worse every time Davey managed to take a look at it. They had no bandages, and though the wound had stopped bleeding, infection was already setting in.

Davey took his arm from around Les’s shoulders and grabbed his hand instead. “We gotta go.“

Carefully, they climbed down the fire escape of what had once been an apartment building–now an empty husk with broken windows and boarded doors–with Davey in the lead, making sure Les didn’t fall off the ladder. They made it to the bottom without incident, but right as Davey was helping Les off the ladder, he heard exactly what he had been dreading–footsteps.

“Davey-”

“Les, be quiet.” Davey pushed him down behind a pile of old crates. “Stay down.” He stepped out, crowbar in hand, and barely managed to dodge a hand that grabbed for him. The Undead was bloody from head to toe, and Davey shuddered to think of how much was its own. The creature came for him again, but this time he was ready, slamming it in the face with the crowbar. The Undead hit the ground with a solid  _thud_ , and Davey hit it again. And again. And again, until it had stopped moving. He stood there for a moment, panting, before a small voice brought him back to reality.

“Davey?” Shit. Les. Davey turned to his brother, who was still half hidden behind the crates. There were tears in his eyes that Davey knew weren’t just because of the pain in his arm.

“It’s okay, Les.” Davey moved forward to hug him but stopped when he raised his hand and saw it was covered in blood. He looked down at his clothes and saw that they were in a similar state. “Oh.”

“There’s some on your face, too,” Les pointed out. “It’s just kind of…everywhere.”

“Good to know. Maybe it’ll keep them away from us.” It was only kind of a joke, but it made Davey happy to see Les smile.

“Are we close to the lodging house, Davey?” Les asked as they walked out of the alley, Davey scanning the streets for any other dangers.

“Yeah, Les.” Davey spotted another Undead barreling toward them, its mouth open wide in a grotesque, greedy fashion. He tightened his grip on his crowbar and prepared to swing. “We’re close.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr: @poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow  
> find me on twitter: @its_spinning


	3. Chapter 3

Jack sat on the rusty fire escape, staring out at the darkened streets as though they would give him answers to the questions everyone had been asking since the beginning. But the streets remained frustratingly quiet save for the faint growling of an Undead wandering a few blocks away; it was so far off that Jack wasn’t worried. Besides, if it got dangerously close and caused trouble, Albert and Elmer would come down from their posts on the roof and sound the alarm.

Albert and Elmer. The reason Jack was sitting on the fire escape instead of the rooftop (not his penthouse anymore, no longer a place of solace, just a lookout point) and mentally chiding himself for being such a coward. He wanted to tell them what had happened (he  _had_  to), but he was still trying to gather up the courage to climb the ladder and face his friends. All the newsies were close (that was another reason Jack was on the fire escape instead of inside, because he couldn’t bear to see any of his friends cry any longer), but Albert and Elmer and Finch had been practically inseparable, especially after Smalls had gone out alone one night to scout and hadn’t come back and Finch had nearly lost it and it looked like he might do the same and not come on purpose before Albert and Elmer had calmed him down and kept him company in his bunk for days after as he cried at the loss of one of his best friends.

Finch had been the one to convince Albert and Elmer to stay at the lodging house before he and Jack left on their excursion (Jack had hoped it would be a rescue mission and not one of recovery, and he was oddly disappointed when it turned out to be neither). They had wanted to join, to stay together.

“The more of us that go out there, the easier targets we become,” Finch had said, then smiled. “It’ll just take a couple’a hours, and then we’ll be back.”

So Albert and Elmer had reluctantly stayed behind but both insisted on taking lookout until Jack and Finch returned.

And then a couple of hours turned into many more, and Jack and Finch took a wrong turn and found themselves surrounded, and then-

Jack was glad for the spare shirt Specs had found for him to wear while his soaked in the browning water in the tub in the washroom. This one was a little too big and very ragged, but at least it wasn’t covered in Finch’s blood.

He sighed and stood up before he could change his mind for the tenth time, planting his right foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and beginning the climb to the roof. Moments later, he was at the top, and no sooner had he pulled himself up than a hand grabbed his shirt and dragged him forward. Albert was suddenly in his face, cheeks and eyes red and puffy.

“Where the  _fuck_  have you been?” He asked, voice quiet and hard with fury, one hand still holding the front of Jack’s shirt and the other vaguely gesturing at Elmer, who stood a few feet away, looking hesitant. “We’ve been up here for hours, waitin’ for some kind’a word.”

“We saw you come back,” Elmer said, stepping forward. His lower lip was trembling, and his eyes were just as red as Albert’s. “Finch wasn’t with ya.”

“Yeah, uh,” Jack gently untangled Albert’s fingers from his shirt, a little surprised that Albert actually let him, “that’s why I’m up here. I wanted to come up sooner, I just...I was so fuckin’  _scared_.” He hated the tears that suddenly pricked at his eyes unbidden, and he wiped them away stubbornly.

“Jack...” Albert’s voice had softened just a little. “Fuck, what happened? Why didn’t Finch come back?”

Jack found he couldn’t look either of his friends in the eye, not wanting to see their pain. “We...we was about to head back. We had already taken too long, ya know? Didn’t find nothin’ worth findin’. Then we turned a corner and the street was just full of ‘em. Teemin’ with Undeads. We tried to run, to get away, but one of ‘em grabbed Finch. The batons didn’t do shit, not against ten of ‘em.” He took a shaky breath, determined to get the rest out. “They tore him apart. By the time I managed to drag Finch away, there...wasn’t much left.”

“Please stop.” Elmer’s voice was little more than a whisper, and though he sounded pleading, Jack found that the words just kept spilling out without conscious volition.

“I tried to save ‘im, but they was too fast. And when they got ‘im, I just...I didn’t do nothin’ at first. I was frozen. And then he screamed-”

“Stop!” Elmer’s eyes were squeezed shut, and his fingers were balled into tight fists. “Fuckin’  _stop_ , Jack! He’s  _gone_ , and he’s not comin’ back, and there’s nothin’ we can do about it now, and...” he trailed off, his words dissolving into sobs, and Albert grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close.

Jack didn’t know what to do. Tears streamed down his face, and this time he made no effort to wipe them away.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and he didn’t know if he was saying it to Albert and Elmer, or if somehow, he was hoping Finch would hear it. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr: @poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow  
> find me on twitter: @its_spinning

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: @poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow  
> find me on twitter: @its_spinning


End file.
